The Essence of Fiction: Characterization and Dialogue

The three major elements of fiction writing are plot, characterization, and dialogue. Perhaps the most formidable task of fiction writing is that of characterization, as characterization forms the backbone of any work, and I believe is more important than plot. The fictional plot is a carefully constructed sequence of events showing what happens to the characters, how they react, and the actions they take.

In fiction, regardless of how compelling the story, it is the characters which give the story life and seize the reader’s attention—the more "real" or "alive" characters are, the better the story will be. Characters, especially protagonists, must be multi-dimensional and become real persons to the reader. The audience must be made to care about them, what they experience and endure, and see the changes they go through as the story moves forward. Through characterization, the storyteller develops characters whom the reader comes to know, with whom they share concern, and ultimately can foresee how they will react to events as the story unfolds. With protagonists, the audience will care only about those with whom they can identify.

An excellent example of fictional character development is Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes. What well-read person can say that they don’t "know" Holmes? Through Conan Doyle’s strong character development we feel that Holmes is a real person. We know his behavior, his talents, and his mannerisms. We know what he looks like, where he lives, even his taste for music. Conan Doyle has made Holmes almost literally "come alive" for the audience through carefully crafted characterization.

Characters are developed through three principal methods: background, action, and dialogue.

Background development forms the foundation of the character. What is his background? What are his habits and preferences? What are his talents and abilities? What are his strengths and weaknesses? A character’s background should be developed relatively early in the story, thereby allowing the audience to better understand his behavior and actions later on. Also, the audience should have a visual image of the character. Is he tall or short? What color is his hair or eyes? The reader should be able to determine what the character looks like.

The second principal method of character development, action, may be divided into several key categories: a) Behavior and Plausibility: Characters should have good reasons for their actions. The audience must believe that characters would do (and are capable of doing) what the author tells us. Their actions must be consistent with their behavior, both emotionally and physically. In other words, their actions must be believable; b) Determination: A protagonist must be driven to achieve an objective (or avoid an outcome). He must be able to overcome all obstacles that he will be confronted with, and therefore must be highly motivated; c) Change: A character must be changed as the events unfold and the story progresses. As he takes action and overcomes obstacles, the character must be changed in some way, so that by the end of the story he has grown or developed (or been diminished) in some manner.

Action should also incorporate other areas to further develop the character and to invoke audience emotional attachment, such as: a) Emotional Association: The reader should believe that what is happening to the characters in a story could happen to them. A key element here is to make the reader feel what the character feels; b) Injustice: an injustice done against a character is an effective means to elicit an emotional response from the reader. By generating empathy for the character, the audience is more drawn to him, thus solidifying the emotional association; c) Decisions: As events unfold, characters must make decisions. Readers want to watch the characters make these decisions, not be told about them. Characters who make positive moral decisions under challenging circumstances gain audience support, again solidifying the emotional association by the reader; d) Endangerment: When a character the audience cares about becomes endangered, their emotions are intensified.

By this point in the story the reader should have formed some kind of identification with the character, and when they are in peril the reader will become most involved with the character.

The third principal method of character development, and perhaps the most important, is dialogue. Through dialogue the reader comes to know a character, just as in our everyday lives. In real life, how could you expect to come to know someone who never talked or communicated? Through a person’s speech, we learn more about their personality and their behavior.

There has been much written about crafting dialogue, and I don’t know of any "secrets," but there are some important rules. The primary intent of good dialogue is to have energy and direction that characterizes and moves the story forward.

In one sense, dialogue sounds like real people talking, although in reality it is a blend of actual and imaginary speech. That’s important, so let me say that again—it is a blend of actual and imaginary speech. If you listen to real conversations among people, there are pauses, interruptions, unfinished sentences, grammatical errors, and missing words. Good dialogue should sound like "real life" while combining the craft of writing. On one hand it should sound realistic and plausible (believable) in that we should be able to envision the characters talking in such a manner in a given situation, while on the other hand it should be more compressed and more focused (using the craft of writing) without adhering to the faithfulness of actual speech. As an example, consider the following passage from my novel SmokeFire!, where the protagonist is discussing a trail route, while looking at a map, with the Park Rangers:

"Uh, well, they started off over here at the Abrams Creek Bridge, over on Highway 129 and were going to hike up Panther Creek. Then they were going to cut over to, uh, Parson's Branch Road. After that, well, I think they were going to cut over, to uh, over to Gregory's Bald at Shuckstack, and come out over here by Fontana Dam."

Although this sounds like actual speech, it is too realistic. There is too much pausing and use of interjections (i.e. uh, well) and the dialogue rambles. Using the tools of the craft of writing, the protagonist can say the same thing in a more compressed and focused form while maintaining realism. The actual dialogue in the novel reads:

"They started off at the Abrams Creek Bridge on Highway 129 and were going up Panther Creek, intercepting Parson's Branch Road, over to Gregory's Bald to Shuckstack, and exiting at Fontana Dam."

Not only is the actual dialogue more direct, it also better defines the "voice" of the protagonist. He is more assured, more definite, more articulate, and uses words such as intercepting and exiting, which contributes to his personality.

As an experiment, listen carefully to (maybe even recording) a conversation between two people. Write down exactly what they say, then go back and rewrite the conversation using the craft of writing. Try to keep the realism, but compress the dialogue, make it more focused, and change the wording to make it flow and give "voice" to the characters. In the end, compare the two dialogues. Does the crafted dialogue convey the same ideas or opinions expressed by the characters? Does it give insight to the characters? Is the dialogue smoother and easier to read? Is it still realistic? The answers should all be, yes!

Another important element of good dialogue is giving each character a unique "voice." A character’s voice—their speech pattern and vocabulary—help define the character. New writers often fall prey to the mistake of having all the characters speak the same. They have the same speech pattern, they use the same vocabulary, and as a result they "sound" the same and have the same cadence to their speech.

I use several methods to overcome, as I call it, the "dialogue trap," so that each character has his or her own voice. First, consider each character and their background. How educated are they? What do they do for a living? What is their personality—are they strong-willed, demure, self-assured, insecure, or arrogant? It is important that you define your character’s "voice" and speech patterns just as you define him as a person.

When I develop characters and their "voices," I sometimes reflect upon real-life people whom I know or have known. In SmokeFire! I developed a secondary antagonist’s speech based upon an adult "bully" whom I had known in my past. I recalled conversations which I had overheard (or been engaged in) with this person. From my recollections of his speech pattern—which was arrogant, direct, and intimidating—I developed this antagonist based primarily around dialogue, with very little narrative describing him. When I quoted him, my test readers would say something like, "That’s Vodeski talking. Oh, I really despise him!" When I asked why, they would tell me exactly why they didn’t like him. It sounded like they had actually met the man, and several added that they knew someone just like him. When my test readers "trashed" him as a person, I only smiled. He was real, and he became real through dialogue!

Another method which I find effective is to write the dialogue, then get a second (or third) person, and have each person read the dialogue aloud just as if it were a conversation. While they are speaking, I sit back and listen closely and make notes onto the manuscript. Oftentimes when I have no one else available, I will read the dialogue aloud (generally while walking around and using hand gestures) and see if it "works." Meaning, does it sound like real life while incorporating the art of the craft? Does it flow? Does it move the story? Is it revealing or creating tension? Does it sound like real people talking?

Another tool I use is what I call "plausibility." After each line of dialogue, I try to envision how the other person in the scene would react, and if what they are saying in reply is believable.

Finally, regarding characters "voices," it is important to maintain what I call a consistency of voice. Each character’s voice and speech patterns should be consistent throughout the work. There are exceptions to this, of course, in that if a character becomes more educated as the story progresses—a college student, for example—his or her vocabulary and speech pattern might change somewhat. Generally speaking, I try to keep each character’s voice consistent, as it is an integral part of their personalities.

Writing good dialogue also involves some "mechanics," or art of the craft. There has been much written on this subject—entire books in fact—but I believe if you adhere to some of the basics, that good dialogue can be developed.

Dialogue tags: This is where, following a line of dialogue, the words "he said" or "she said" are added. I really struggled with this as a new writer, and still do occasionally. Using tags can flatten out the dialogue and be disruptive, especially where dialogue is used to increase tension. If each character has his or her own voice it should be a simple matter for the reader to determine who is speaking. During long dialogue, I will try to insert a dialogue tag at a strategic location so the reader doesn’t have to reread the passage to figure out who is talking. I call this "tag timing." In short, I don’t use tags after each line of dialogue, nor do I generally leave them out altogether. I try to let the dialogue progress two or three lines then put in a tag, not necessarily at the end of the line, but sometimes in the middle, which gives a short pause in the dialogue.

Sometimes I’ll enhance the tag by "extending" it. Consider the following dialogue line from SmokeFire!, where I embed the tag then extend it before moving on to the interrogatory:

"My name is Harrison Pike. I'm the Chief Ranger," he said, turning his six-foot five-inch frame towards Buddy. "Where is it you’re wanting to go?"

Which is much better than:

"My name is Harrison Pike," he said, "I'm the Chief Ranger. Where is it you’re wanting to go?" he asked.

The tag extension of "turning his six-foot five-inch frame towards Buddy," does a couple of things. It provides a pause in the dialogue, and gives a physical description of Pike’s size, which eliminates the necessity of me having to describe how big he is in a narrative passage.

Using dialogue tags is absolutely necessary, in my opinion, and takes practice. As you read books, look at the author’s use of these tags (or where they are left out). Untagged dialogue helps increase the pace and can create tension as each line progresses—just don’t get the reader confused as to who is speaking.

Descriptive Tags: I try to be careful in using adverbs in descriptive tags, such as "he said quietly." David Baldacci, the author of many bestsellers, states that he doesn’t like adverbs very much, and I tend to agree. Although I do use them (sometimes they are an invaluable tool) I try to be extremely sparing with them as they affect tone and tempt the reader to focus more on how something was said versus what was said.

There is one final note on dialogue which I wish to add, and that is the use of profanity. Bad language can be painful to read, and may offend a reader’s sensibilities. Generally, I try to avoid offensive language whenever possible, as I believe it indicates lazy dialogue writing. Certainly one cannot have an antagonist, maybe a hardened convict on death row, for example, saying something like, "get the heck off my bench!" or "oh, doggone," as this would be somewhat unbelievable.

In my novels, my characters occasionally use profanity, but I stick to the more benign phrases such as damn, hell, and so on, and I use them very, very, sparingly. I absolutely stay away from a number of profane phrases like taking the Lord’s name in vain or the four-letter word for fornication. I want my stories to be able to be read and enjoyed by adolescents, persons with deep religious beliefs, and by people who simply don’t curse—basically I want to appeal to all readers of my genre without offending them.

Obviously, this is more difficult to apply with certain genres such as hard-boiled detective novels, but I don’t write those kinds of stories. Clive Cussler, one of my favorite authors who has written many bestsellers, uses absolutely no profanity in his stories. Although his protagonist comes up against many evil villains, Cussler is so crafty in the writing of dialogue that we know the villain is obscene without actually ever hearing it. An artful dialogue writer can come up with a clever way for their character to say just about anything without sacrificing realism.

In the final analysis, a good "tale," as I call it, has many factors. I would much rather read a story which has a weak plot with strong characters and great dialogue than a story with a strong and compelling plot with two-dimensional characters and lazy dialogue.

In writing your stories, think of some great characters. They are all over the place, from books (Sherlock Holmes), movies (Indiana Jones), television (Mister Spock), and in your everyday life. Ask yourself, "What makes them great?" Think about it, then create one!

By T. Judson Kennedy, author of SmokeFire! found at http://www.pdbookstore.com   

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